The first five seconds of Jill Scott's first single in four years, 'So in Love,' is without question, healing. The song's intro with its teasing cymbal, then drum, and finally Anthony Hamilton's voice will transport even jaded Age-of-YouTube listeners to a time when love was love, and music could save us.
The thing is, there's nothing all that extraordinary about 'So In Love,' which is the debut single from her forthcoming 'Light of the Sun.' The track comes across as really quite regular to the seasoned soul music ear -- there is no roaring instrumentation, or belting bridges or hooks. It's just that we've been suffocating all these years without a real authentic sound, no thanks to Erykah Badu's 'New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)' for stealing the last pocket of air, that Scott's single feels like an inhaler for the relief of a sonic asthma attack.
The single's record art boldly captures Scott and Hamilton in an illustration reminiscent of a 70's-era album cover that might have aired in promo across a new color TV set during an episode of 'Soul Train.' It's a striking presentation and a piece of nostalgic 'Black love' iconography in an era saturated with imagery of surgically inflated butts, and nude celebrity twit-pics.
What's more, the artwork seems to demonstrate Scott's commitment to 'neo-soul' -- a tag so many of her contemporaries have done everything they can to run away from. Scott clearly embraces the now often stigmatic genre and proves there is an aesthetic power in the headwraps, earthy 'boho' colors and beautiful brown skin.
And whether Scott is seen in a fro or curly weave -- the latter she wears in the video to her next single 'Shame,' featuring rapper Eve and scheduled to premiere on Thursday, April 14 -- there is ultimately cultural movement in the music. During a poetic sequence in 'So in Love,' a trademark for the vocalist/poet, Scott says:
"First thing in the morning/when I open my eyes and see you/I feel like a breathe of air/I feel like I can fly/and I can get by/any obstacle that comes my way/cus of your love."
"Cus of your love," 'When I open my eyes," "I feel like a breathe of air" -- a series of perhaps basic contemporary R&B lyrical go-tos -- but all so necessary. So very much needed in a time where black love has taken hits from everywhere, and nearly everyone. Relationship experts argue black women are quantitatively disadvantaged. They say black women outnumber black men on college campuses, and in professional spaces. But I argue what's more damaging is how black women have become musically disadvantaged.
There is nothing about today's popular R&B and Hip Hop that tells black men it's cool, sexy, or .com to be so in love with a black woman. Soul music used to blare at high volumes on the frontlines of marches, sit-ins, and rallies throughout our collective history of the black American experience. Today, the music acts as a poignant marker of a changing culture that now tattle-tells the secrets of a narrowing black private space with screened doors left so ajar that CNN can tell me if my man is loving me good enough or not.
And when our children's children look back on the near ancient 2000's, our era's music will tell a story of fragmented hustler fables and hazy 'get on the floor' dance hits.
But it will be most telling of why we needed Jill.
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